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Facebook Adding 600,000 Users A Day

Facebook said this week that it has reached 140 million users, and its growth is accelerating. The social network released updated data this week that reveals why the Facebook engineering team has been working so hard to scale the site’s infrastructure.

Inside Facebook has been tracking the statistics released by Facebook, and says that in recent weeks the site’s growth has accelerated to more than 600,000 new users per day, up from about 300,000 to 400,000 a day. “If Facebook continues at this rate, it could add up to 20 million new users in December and reach 200 million active users by March,” Justin Smith writes.

More than 70 percent of Facebook’s users are outside the United States. That kind of growth has serious implications for infrastructure, and where it’s located. Facebook said last year that it opened its East Coast data center in Ashburn, Virginia to address latency problems. As its international user base grows, Facebook may have to consider locating infrastructure overseas.

Facebook’s statistics page offers some interesting data on user engagement. More than 13 million users update their status every day, and the average user has 100 friends. Facebook hosts more than 10 billion photos, and more than 700 million new photos are being uploaded each month. More than 4 million videos are uploaded each month, and Facebook now has more than 19 million active user groups.

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About the Author

Rich Miller is the founder and editor at large of Data Center Knowledge, and has been reporting on the data center sector since 2000. He has tracked the growing impact of high-density computing on the power and cooling of data centers, and the resulting push for improved energy efficiency in these facilities.

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10 Comments

DaveDecember 17, 2008 at 1:37 pm

So at 200MM users in December 2008, Facebook will claim to have something like 3-4% of the entire planet's population as a user? That includes populace at all ages, demographics, and internet access capabilities. I find this assertion dubious.

Fantastic traffic numbers! Can these be accurate or hype? And, 70% of users are outside the U.S.? Wow!
I wonder what the marketing implications are for major companies looking to capitalize on FaceBook?